Media: Rosaviatsia Supports AFU
- 12.02.2024, 17:49
The FSB accuses the agency of "hijacking" almost 60 aeroplanes and helicopters, some of which ended up in Ukraine.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation has opened criminal cases against the Rosaviatsia management because it illegally exported 59 planes and helicopters abroad, two sources close to law enforcement agencies told Izvestia, and a source in the Ministry of Transport confirmed.
According to them, at least three Mi-8 helicopters have subsequently taken part in the war on Ukraine's side, and transport Il-76s have been delivering cargo with their responders switched off so that their routes could not be traced.
As part of the case, on February 7, searches took place at Rosaviatsia's central office on Leningradsky Avenue in Moscow. FSB and Interior Ministry officers were seizing documents in the offices of two officials of the agency: acting head of the Flight Safety Inspection Department Kristina Byvalina and deputy head of the department of state registration of civil aircraft, rights and transactions with them Pyotr Kozyrev.
"During the course of the activities, items and documents confirming the illegality of Rosaviation employees and other as yet unidentified persons' actions to deregister aircraft were seized," said one of the interlocutors of the publication.
As a result, the FSB opened a criminal case under the article on negligence (part 1 of article 293 of the Criminal Code) against Kozyrev, Byvalina and her former deputy Anna Zhiltsova, who was fired from the agency in June 2023. According to Izvestiya's source, the reason for the latter's dismissal could have been an anti-war poster in the workplace and a negative attitude to the war.
A case of abusing official powers (part 2 of article 286 of the Criminal Code) has also been opened against Byvalina. In the first case, the Criminal Code provides for a maximum penalty of arrest for up to three months, and in the second case - imprisonment for up to seven years.
The reason for bringing criminal charges was an inspection of Rosaviatsia's activities related to the state registration of civil aircrafts, which the Ministry of Transport conducted last July. The inspection showed that the agency's employees deregistered planes and helicopters after the war began, violating Presidential Decrees No. 81 and No. 100 of March 1 and 8, 2022, as well as Government Resolutions No. 311 and No. 312.
According to the source in the Ministry of Transport, Rosaviatsia employees withdrew the vehicles from the State Register of Civil Aircraft without a full set of documents, and also provided contradictory and inaccurate information about the presence of the aircraft outside Russia.
36 of the 59 aircraft illegally removed from Russian jurisdiction were sold. Residents of states outside the EAEU became buyers of 21 aircraft, eight of which were sold to "unfriendly" countries. At that, the vessels left Russia under the pretext of charter flights or other programmes and had to return back, the interlocutor in the Ministry of Transport stressed. According to him, neither temporary nor permanent export of the vessels was registered.
This story was the main reason for the resignation of Rosaviation head Aleksandr Neradko in September 2023, Izvestiya's sources in the Transport Ministry said. The former head of the agency may also become a defendant in this criminal case, they do not rule out.